One thing I’ve found in my years of working in a counseling/social work field is that curriculum doesn’t save people from themselves. Today there are great theories and disciplines that have inspired great change, yet you can’t just sit someone in front of a book so they can walk away at the end cured of their afflictions.

In my experience it’s the people who in the end make the difference. It’s the people who walk alongside the person, showing the patience of a turtle, who help them through the thing that seems to be crippling them.

This seems to be God’s game plan. Though you could argue the Bible is enough, that it’s the perfect curriculum, I’d say that God has put his cards on the table and that those cards are us.

Which seemingly is a terrible choice. The results have been mixed at best.

By Jesus ascending and leaving his church in charge God was taking a risk. Because certainly people can get it wrong. And certainly Christians have done that – hard. Yet the church, a fairly unorganized and difficult to define group of people now found in every country of the world, is God’s chosen way to transform the world.

The truth is that this great experiment hasn’t proven to be the best 100% of the time. I need not name examples. There are people that have damaged others so much that it’d take the Seattle Mariners winning the World Series for them to believe God is not only real, but has had unconditional love for them every step of the way. The failures have been many and public. Yet God entrusted the world into the care of not a book, but a body of people anyway. It’s a foolish yet brillant plan.

You are better than books and discussion guides and tracts. But I didn't say it'd be pretty.

We could wander around for days in this topic – of how God chose flawed humans as the means of the message, of how God chose people and not methods or books, of how enacted a plan guaranteed to make mistakes quickly and often, and of how God believes in us enough to go through with it.

We’ve got loads of relevant sermon series’, small group curriculum and engaging videos – but the missing link, the thing that bring its all together, is the people. Apparently we do the job better than a carefully crafted teaching. Even with corn stuck in our teeth.

5 Responses to Next Time He’ll Just Take A Super Bowl Commercial, Or The Great Experiment

I would rather spend time with people any day, perfect or not, than in a curriculum. People are read. Curriculum is written by people who claim to be real. They have no idea how what they write does not apply to the “average Joe church.” Good point charlie. Give me people sold out to serving God any day.

The cross is about 2 relationships; one with Jesus, and the other with the body. The Bible is the rule book for the game, and it seems that the denominations are the referees – well and the blog-o-sphere.

We do need people, but often times we would rather buy a marketing ploy than join in with someone that that is of real faith. Carefully crafted teaching is just another religious tool. If you read 1 Cor 14, you’ll see that everyone is part of the “service”. If you read Acts 2, you’ll see all steps required for community.

But we’d rather have our nice meat little corporate structures and carefully crafted, logical teaching and instead of Jesus.

This is why I love the Bible – it’s all about people, even when people try to make it all about the Book. God spells out surprisingly little in the Bible, and offers far fewer rules and clear instructions than you’d expect for such a thick book.

Instead, the Bible is all about God’s people – the Hebrews before Jesus, and the Christians who came after – and their attempts to seek after God in whatever circumstances they were in. Even the majority of the parts that do seem like rules and instructions were still directed toward specific people in specific circumstances, which may or may not apply today.

So instead of giving us a big book of curriculum, God gave us a big storybook that shows us what God is like, how God interacts with His people, and how His people do and don’t screw up.

In that context, it’s pretty clear where God puts his focus – on people and relationships.

I don’t know about this. I think we really try God’s patience considering We have a book to learn from about His words and truths but yet fail to read it and depend on man’s interpretation of scripture or books that man has written.

I really think God wants us to do things His way. However, when was the last time you got hudreds of thousands of people to all go the same way with a theology or direction? Every one has a different theology or interpretation.